Tandem Lift

From lift …

Since we added our newest crane vehicle to the fleet in June 2019 we have expanded into offering a tandem lifting service.

This operation is where two crane vehicles work together to lift one larger, heavier or awkward item. In some cases it’s done because the item may have uneven weight distribution, or it may require very careful lifting on more lifting points (to avoid putting stress on the item itself). It may be simply because the item is too long or too heavy to be safely lifted by one crane vehicle.  

To perform tandem lifting operations we always need to see technical drawings or factory lifting instructions for the items we are going to lift and our three man team have to meet prior to the lift to finalise the details of the project.  Our lifting team on this occasion were our operators Darren and Jamie, and our crane supervisor Derrick.  

... to delivery!

The item we lifted is the largest water cooled chiller currently in Europe.  It was being installed at an exhibition centre in London, and was delivered in to us before we took it to site.  We carefully unloaded it from a continental lorry and placed on one of our flatbed trailers. This chiller weighed 14,000kg which means it was too heavy for one of our crane vehicles to lift on its own, and was 2.3m wide which meant it needed to be very carefully extracted from the continental trailer so as not to damage the chiller or the trailer.

When we delivered it to its final resting place in London we were met by a heavy duty mobile crane which lifted it off and lowered it into a basement ahead of our customer’s engineers arriving to commission it. 

And another tandem lift….

Another example of tandem lifting in action, which was equally as challenging, but not quite so heavy. 

In this instance the item we were lifting was a commercial air conditioning unit.  It is fitted with a number of very big radiators known as coils which are particularly fragile and vulnerable to damage caused by twisting and flexing forces.  Again this unit was very wide at 2.4m.  This makes it very tight to manoeuver it out from the delivering trailer’s frame work. Being fragile in its construction we had to be careful not to apply pressure to the sides of the unit from the lifting slings, so because of this and due to the unit length we used spreader beams on both cranes to allow us to get lifting slings onto all eight of its factory fitted lifting lugs.

For the most part with tandem lifting operations we are able to utilise our many and varied lifting accessories to get the job done.  A task like this relies on planning the movement carefully in advance, ensuring you have all the equipment ready to hand, and first and foremost on clear lines of communication between both operators and the crane supervisor.  It’s challenging work but we have a great team who relish the experience!